Sales Tip – Yes I am an Idiot

This is embarrassing for me, but it illustrates how to
increase your sales.

I’ve said for years that the easiest thing to sell is what
people want to buy. Ya, I know your thinking, “no kidding”.

Well if it’s so obvious why don’t most businesses do it?

Read any ad and you see that it’s about the business doing the selling
not about what’s in it for the customer.

So here’s what happened.

I sold my wife’s car  in June of 2006. I got a notice
from a towing company in September of 2006 that the car was
towed and being stored. I needed to come pick it up and
pay a huge towing and storage fee.

I called the towing company and told them I didn’t own the car.
They told me according to the state, Idid. I told them I didn’t want the car
and they could keep it or sell it I didn’t care. They told me that was no problem
and that they would take care of it.

In April of 2007 I got a notice form a collection agency that I owed $1220.52
to this towing company.

What’s the lesson?

I didn’t know it at the time, but I sold the car to a guy that had two prior DUI’s. In my state he would have to pay some very high car insurance premiums and he would have to put license plates on his car that indicate he has been a drunk driver. They call them “whiskey plates”.

Remember the easiest thing to sell is what people want to buy? When I sold this car he came on a Sunday and he wanted to do the deal right away. He didn’t try to negotiate a better deal he just wanted to buy it. This of course meant that I would just sign over the title to him and he could go register the car himself later.

He never did!

Yes I am an idiot, I never sent in my sales receipt to the state.

What did my customer get? What he wanted, no insurance and no whiskey plates.

I am sure you’re curious, no I didn’t pay and the car is now in his name because I had the sales receipt.

The lesson is are you selling what your prospects want to buy? If not you are missing a lot of business and easy sales.

Here is an example;
Bank A has a sign out front that says, “In the community since
1964″

Bank B has a sign that says, “We will loan you money…Guaranteed?”

Which bank do you think does more business? One sign is about the bank
the other sign is about the customer.

If you would like some more free sales and marketing ideas just go over to
www.GSSAM.com and sign up.

Now go sell something,
Blase

Marketing Tip – Is Government Smarter Than You?

Other than the nice folks that work for the government most people think that the government just likes to raise taxes and spend their money. This may or may not be true, but that’s not what I wanted to comment on today, this is a marketing blog after all.

If you are a business owner you always need to be on the look out for ways you can improve your business, you want to adopt and adapt. Well who would of thought that the state of Minnesota, (that’s were I live) had a clue about marketing? Well they do and they are doing something most small to medium size businesses don’t do.

What is it you ask?

I got a notice in the mail that my car tabs needed to be renewed, along with that notice was three separate pieces of paper that were advertising for different companies. WOW!

I didn’t check this all out, but I will make some assumptions. First assumption, the state didn’t figure this out on their own. There is probably a company out there that works with state billing departments that handles all of the details. Assumption number 2, the state makes a profit from these advertisers that either makes a profit or at least pays for the mailing, so it’s a break even for the state at a minimum. Next assumption, getting direct mail open is very difficult to do, every person that receives a bill from the state opens it. That’s a 100% open rate!

Last assumption; if you own a small to medium size business you probably don’t do this. Why not? The easiest thing to do would be to contact your customers that own a business and ask them if they would like to advertise in your billings? You could do this for a set fee, you could get paid a percentage of their sales, or if nothing else you could let some really good customers do it for free so they continue to be really good customers.

For more sales and marketing help you can always contact me at www.GSSAM.com

Now go sell something,
Blase

Small Business – How’s Your Service?

I tear out interesting articles that apply to what I do or
what one of my clients may do and save them.

I was going through the file the other day and this article
just happened to hit me at the right time.

The article was in the Feb. 04 issue of Fast Company. It
was about two sisters; Cindy Lewis and Marian Brzykey that
were so dissatisfied with customer service that they decide
to do an informal survey of customer service.

They shopped at almost 500 retailers and spent $5,000 to
get their results. Here is what the found.

Only 3% of their store visits left them very satisfied!
97% of their store visits failed on the basics. You know
those same basic things you expect when you go shopping.

I was at my local grocery store the other day I walked up
to the casher and she didn’t even acknowledge that I was
there. She was carrying on a conversation with the girl at
the customer service counter, they were yelling back and
forth.

Then she rang up my stuff, still talking to the other girl,
she had the total on her cash register, but did tell me what
I owed her she was to busy talking. I could see the total
so I took a fifty out of my wallet and set it on the counter.
Still nothing! So I picked it up and waved in front of her
face while she kept talking. Finally she took it gave me my
change and then she said it, “have a nice day”. I kid you
not this really happened!

I’ll bet you and I could share stories all day about lousy
service. So here is the big question. What are you doing to
train your employees in even the basics of how a customer
should be treated?

Don’t assume that the basics are understood, they are not
anymore, if you doubt that just go for a drive and watch
how people drive and the ensuing road rage.

If your employees don’t treat customers they way they deserve
to be treated you will not get the customer back again.

There are six places to buy groceries within a 2-mile radius
of my home I do have choices.

To be honest with you I think this is one of the harder issues
you face as an employer.

Now go sell something,
Blase

P.S. Would you do me a favor? If you know a
business owner would you tell him/her about
this blog? Thanks again.

Marketing Tip – What’s Your Guarantee?

About seven years ago I was working with a company that
built custom parts for their customers. They charged what
is call and NRE, which stands for Non Recurring Engineering.

This is a one-time fee to do all of the R&D to get the first
prototype built.

There is a whole process of meetings and paperwork that goes
on to develop a specification that the customer agrees to
before anything is started. Once everything is agreed to
the R&D begins, and half of the NRE is paid up front. This
fee was between $50,000 to $100,000 dollars.

Here is the interesting part that the customers never knew
about until I came along. If this company built this
prototype and it didn’t meet the agreed upon specifications
you could get all of your NRE money back!

Does that sound like a guarantee to you? It did to me too.

So I did some checking and found out that in sixteen years
they had always met the customer’s specifications, so I put
the guarantee on paper.

Of course before anything goes public many companies look
over all of the collateral (marketing materials) when they
are first developed.

I got a call… the President of the company wanted to meet
with me. He handed me a copy of the guarantee and told me
he didn’t want to use it, because he was uncomfortable with it.

So I asked him a few questions.

In sixteen years have you ever not met the spec? He didn’t
know I had to tell him that he hadn’t.

In sixteen years has anyone ever asked for a refund? He didn’t
know I had to tell him that he hadn’t.

If someone gave you $100,000 and you couldn’t deliver and the
customer was on the phone yelling and screaming and threatening
a law suite what would you do? He said he would give him their
money back.

Then I asked him doesn’t that sound like a guarantee to you?

He kept the written guarantee and it improved his sales.

As a consumer if you are not happy with a purchase what do you
do?

Most people complain, ask for a refund, or worst case they never
do business with that company again.

If a business doesn’t make things right, how do you feel?
Most people get ticked off, tell everybody they know what a
jerk the business owner is so the business doesn’t just lose
one customer it loses a lot of customers.

What do most business do with an unhappy customer? They try
to make it right. Doesn’t that sound like a guarantee to you?

Do you have a guarantee?
Is it written down?
Do your employees know what it is?
Most of all do your customers know what it is?

Now go work on your guarantee.

For more ideas and thoughts about guarantees go to www.GSSAM.com
Take care,
Blase